In the Sun
by anabiel
Summary: "Mr. Stark, you have T-cell prolymphocytic leukemia, no doubt as a result of your long-term exposure to palladium."


**In the Sun**

 **Prognosis**

"You're shitting me…"

The doctor sighed softly as though she was expecting this reaction, or maybe it was in relief that he hadn't thrown something at her? "As much as I wish it wasn't… Mr. Stark, you have T-cell prolymphocytic leukemia, no doubt as a result of your long-term exposure to palladium. I'm actually surprised it's only taken till now for-ah, nevermind," she muttered hastily, clearing her throat. She looked like she was going to continue, but paused; she could tell that her patient wanted to ask a question.

"Wha-" Tony stopped and swallowed, trying to get his voice to work. His throat suddenly felt so dry. "What's the prognosis..?" he rasped.

The doctor shifted uncomfortably and her eyes quickly looked away from Tony, studiously looking at the monitor above Tony's bed. Tony tensed; he could tell that it wasn't going to be good. "Normal prognosis is a year at best, but there have been some who have lived for more than 5 years after the initial diagnosis." Tony swallowed hard and his hands gripped the white sheets tightly. "The next steps would be to…"

As she began to ramble about the next steps of his treatment, Tony's mind tuned her out (Jarvis would fill him in on the details later, anyway). His initial feelings had been of bitter irony: even though the palladium had been replaced with a new element, it had somehow come back to finish the job. Obie would be pleased; Tony was going to die after all. He would finally get his revenge, as belated as it was. _Just a year. Just one year…_

"-r. Stark?"

Tony was brought out of his thoughts with a jolt; he had almost forgotten that the doc was still there. "Can you just.. just go?"

"Sure.." Her voice was soft and there was an unreadable expression on her face – pity? She turned to leave, but then paused at the door. "Did you want me to call anyone for you?"

Tony blinked slowly, barely registering her words. "No.. It's fine."

"Alright then. The call light is next to you. Just let me know if you need anything. I'll be back to check on you later." Then she was gone.

Tony let his head fall back onto the white pillow. No wonder Jarvis had been so insistent he visit the doctor; the AI had suspected something. What was it? The bruising? The exhaustion? The… The…

He realized that the list of possible symptoms was long, and Tony had ignored all of them because he had been too busy doing other things and he had attributed the symptoms to something else… something less hazardous to his health. Sleep deprivation. Being tossed around during battles….

Well, fuck. Now what was he supposed to do? He already gave the company to Pepper; Happy was taken care of (now that he was quickly recovering from the "bombing")… Rhodey had War Machine (Tony was never going to call it Iron Patriot; that was just too lame)… Jarvis… Jarvis would stay with Pepper and maybe look after the Avengers… Right. The Avengers… SHIELD… Tony would have thought that having done this before, his life would be easier to wrap up into a nice little package.

Fuck. Fuckfuckfuck… Fucking life. Fuck Obie.. Just FUCK. Why did life hate him so _much_?! Ok. Well, it's not like Tony did anything to warrant anything good from life… That was true. Maybe, this was just all his karma catching up to him… From all the mistakes he'd made in the past… From all the stupidity he had conveniently forgotten about… (The Mandarin being a big one he had somehow overlooked… Hammer… the guy was irritating but really, Tony should never have been so flippant knowing the man's personality… )

What else had Tony conveniently forgotten? Maybe… Maybe it was time to sort through everything Old-Tony did and fix them before Present-Tony became Dead-Tony and before his past mistakes decided to rear their ugly heads and go after the people he cared about the most.

The people.. he…

" _So you're a man who has everything… and nothing_ …"

But Yinsen had been wrong. Tony _had_ everything; he was just too blind to see it at first… which was why this was the worst thing about the fact that he was dying this time around; Tony really, _really_ didn't want to die. It had taken much too much time (and flying a nuke into space) to truly realize what, or rather who, was important to Tony, and Tony wasn't willing to let that go. He didn't want to. This time, he really wanted to live.

* * *

 _If there is anyone who is in the sun_  
 _Will you help me to understand_  
 _'Cause I've been caught in between  
_ _All I wish for and all I need_

* * *

I started writing this 3 years ago, and unfortunately, I can't remember where I was going with it.. So I guess it will have to remain unfinished.

Concerning the leukemia... Palladium has been shown to be carcinogenic in animals, and I think I read somewhere that it can cause leukemia, but it didn't say which, so I took creative license and picked one.

Title - In the Sun by Joseph Arthur


End file.
